Eugene Volokh:

Illinois “stalking” and “cyber-stalking” statutes criminalize (among other things),

• “knowingly engag[ing] in [2 more or acts] directed at a specific person,”
• including “communicat[ing] to or about” a person,
• when the communicator “knows or should know that this course of conduct would cause a reasonable person to”
• “suffer emotional distress,” defined as “significant mental suffering, anxiety or alarm.”

The statute expressly excludes, among other things, “an exercise of the right to free speech or assembly that is otherwise lawful.”

Despite that last exclusion, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the provisions as unconstitutionally broad under the First Amendment. (The Cato Institute and the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project had filed an amicus brief). Shouldn’t Illinois lawmakers have known better? [People v. Relerford]

Filed under: First Amendment, Illinois, online speech